Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/230

178 fall of Forty-nine or the spring of Fifty," and thirty-five baskets would seem a small allowance for that vast and increasing multitude.

The Stag-Hound arrived May 26th. She sailed from New York in January, and when six days out in a heavy southeast gale, her maintopmast and three topgallantmasts came down by the run. She was without a maintopsail for nine days and without topgallantsails for twelve days; nevertheless, she crossed the equator 21 days from Sandy Hook, arrived at Valparaiso in 66 days under jury rig, and, allowing for her detention there, reached San Francisco 107 days from New York. Captain Richardson reported that she was a very fast ship in moderate breezes, while in strong winds she frequently logged sixteen and seventeen knots, although her best day's run was only 358 miles.

The Witchcraft arrived August 11th. She, too, had suffered aloft and put into Valparaiso for spars and repairs, and, allowing for this delay, she had made the passage from New York in 103 days. The N. B. Palmer arrived August 21st in 108 days, and the Flying Cloud on August 31st in 89 days—a passage never surpassed and only twice equalled—once three years later by the Flying Cloud herself, and once in 1860 by the Andrew Jackson.

The Flying Cloud's abstract log on this passage is as follows: